North Star
by shipperluv
Summary: Did Lucas really think they were losers? Or was there something more to his frustrations over the disastrous baseball tryouts?


"You really think we're losers?"

Farkle and Smackle had left awhile earlier, and Maya and Zay had just gone to help themselves to something in the Matthews' refrigerator, leaving Riley and Lucas in her room in a rare moment alone together.

They didn't often get a chance to talk one-on-one anymore, or if they did, it was with the knowledge that it couldn't be a singular event because he'd have to even things up with Maya. So it should've been nice for Riley to have him all to herself for this one moment, but she was too disturbed by what he'd been saying since he'd crawled through her window.

"You told me before, it was only one bad grade. So, does one D make me a loser, or...did you just think I was loser before that happened?"

She put the question to him with her face drawn up in a smiling expression and an underlying gust of uncertain laughter, but Lucas could see past it to the hurt in her eyes, and he was appalled that he'd put it there.

"No!" he denied immediately, "Of course I didn't. Riley..." he shook his head shortly, angry with himself for, once again, saying something thoughtless and hurtful to her. He thought he'd learned his lesson after what he'd said to her in the hole before he'd abandoned her there a few weeks ago, but here he was, still hurting her. "I never should've said all that, Riley. I'm sorry. I don't know what's the matter with me!" The last was said with frustration and there was a tense, defeated slump to his shoulders as he hung his head and clenched his fists in his lap.

Riley was immediately sorry she'd said anything, and she raised a hand to lay it on the denim of his sleeve in comfort. "It's okay. I know you didn't mean anything by it."

"No, it's not okay," he returned, not allowing her to let him off the hook that easily. "Just because I'm feeling like one doesn't mean I should come running over here to try and make you feel like a failure right along with me."

"Lucas. You're not a failure," she assured him, stroking his upper arm in a soothing motion.

"I feel like one," he said bleakly. "You should've seen me today, Riley. I was awful. Last year I was the MVP of our team, but anybody who saw me at tryouts today would never believe it." He shook his head. "I couldn't hit anything they threw at me, my arm was off when I tried to pitch, and out in the field? _Everything_ was getting past me. I've always been so _good_ at baseball. I don't understand what happened."

He sounded so baffled and lost, and Riley's heart went out to him at the look of confused dejection on his face. "You just had a bad day. You're allowed to have an off day every once in awhile aren't you? That doesn't make you a failure."

"It's not just that," he sighed. "It's everything. I didn't expect high school to be this hard. I'm really struggling, Riley," he confessed with a sideways glance at her face. "I mean, I know we're all sort of- floundering, and trying to adjust, but..." he chewed on his lip for a moment before admitting quietly, "Sometimes I kind of feel like I'm drowning. You know? Things that used to be easy seem so much harder now. Our classes are more difficult, there's so many new people I feel like I get lost in the crowd, and everything I thought I was good at, it somehow feels like I've lost it and I can't seem to do those things anymore. I feel like I'm struggling just to hold on to who I am, but I'm not even sure now if I know who that is. Nothing seems to feel right anymore. And I'm just so _tired_ , all the time. It's like my mind is constantly going, it never rests, but I still can't seem to figure anything out."

Riley's brows had pulled together in an expression of concern. She could relate to the part about his mind always spinning, hers had been like that a lot lately too. _And_ to the part about being tired all the time. And receiving her first D might have shaken her own sense of self, but she'd never seen Lucas be anything but steady and confident in who he was, so what he was saying was troubling.

"Lucas... I didn't know you were feeling like that. Why didn't you say anything?"

He shrugged uncomfortably. "You guys have all been having a hard time too. You've had enough of your own stuff to deal with without listening to me whine about my troubles. In fact, I don't know why I'm doing it now." With that, he abruptly stood from the bed, and moved agitatedly to the other side of the room.

One thing he hadn't told her was that he'd really been struggling with his temper too. He got frustrated so easily these days. It seemed like he was tense all the time. And usually, Riley had a way of making him feel calm when he was with her, but right now he was just mad at himself for coming over here the way he had. He'd had himself a hissy-fit about tryouts and had tried to drag her down so she'd feel as low as he did. And Farkle too. His best friend had already been feeling bad when he got here, and Lucas had called him a loser too. It seemed like he was always saying the wrong thing these days.

Sighing shortly, he rubbed a hand over the back of his head.

"Hey," Riley said quietly, putting a light hand on his back. He hadn't even heard her get up.

As she passed her hand up and down his shoulder blade in a small gesture of comfort, Riley frowned at the tension in his muscles there. "Come sit back down, okay?"

He gave her a fleeting look over his shoulder, unable to meet her eyes, and when he made no move to obey, she took hold of his arm to turn him back towards the bed.

"Come on," she urged again.

Giving in, Lucas shuffled back over to the bed with her, and they both resumed their seats on its end.

His face was down-turned, the line of his shoulders stiff, and Riley wanted to stroke the hair at his nape to get him to relax. It was the thought that Maya would have to be offered the same opportunity that stopped her. The idea of her best friend running her fingers through his hair made her stomach twist.

She felt the need to soothe him in some way though, so she put her hand on his forearm, just below the rolled-up sleeve of his jacket so that she was touching bare skin.

"It's not whining if you tell us you're having a hard time, Lucas," she chided him gently, addressing what he'd said before he'd gotten up. "You shouldn't have to deal with that kind of thing by yourself, that's the point of having friends. You told me that, remember?"

The corner of his lips turning up, he nodded. "I remember." He'd told her that when he'd found out she was being bullied, and that she'd been fighting that battle alone. He didn't think what he'd been dealing with compared in the least to the gravity of that situation though.

But Riley felt the sentiment applied anyway. "We care about you. And if we'd known you were having trouble we would've wanted to help. I don't like the idea of you struggling like that and not talking to any of us about it."

"Now you know how _I_ felt," he pointed out with a faint smile.

"Oh! So you were doing all this just to show me the error of my ways? Well then, mission accomplished! Now you can go back to your regularly scheduled Lucas," she said cheerily, gesturing towards him with her palm.

Lucas chuckled, but it was subdued and somewhat sad. "I wish I could. But it seems like he's getting harder and harder to find these days." It was like every time he turned around he was either catching himself doing something that wasn't like him, or he was unable to do something that he'd thought was an innate part of himself.

"And that's why you need your friends," she told him. "We know who you are, Lucas. If you need to be reminded, just come to us, okay? I know we're all finding out new things, and really learning who we are right now, but we know who you are in here." She lifted her hand from his arm to lay it over his heart. "We won't let you forget who Lucas Friar is. He's someone who's really important to us. Who's important to _me_ ," she admitted shyly. "So if he's feeling like he's getting lost, I want to be there to try and help him find his way."

Touched by her declaration, he finally lifted his eyes to hers, and was immediately ensnared in their dark depths.

Slowly raising his hand to cover hers where it rested against his jacket, he told her quietly, "You do help me find my way. You always have. Ever since I got to New York."

Her eyes fell to take in the sight of his much larger hand cradling the back of hers, then they came back up to meet his. They were sitting so close they were practically breathing one another's air, and with soft green locked onto earthy brown, it was a moment of spellbinding intimacy that neither of them wanted to break.

Sitting there with her small, delicate hand covering his heart, and looking into the warm sincerity and caring that shone from those eyes that seemed to see into his soul, delivered a sense of peace and calm to him like nothing else had in days. Weeks even. Maybe even in months.

This was something she'd been missing, this feeling of connection with him. Riley hadn't even realized how much. But gazing into his eyes, and finding something there that she hadn't realized she'd lost, made her wonder just how long it had been since they'd really talked and listened in a way that opened their hearts to one another. In that moment it felt like it had been forever.

They sat there silently reclaiming that bond that had somehow gotten buried beneath everything that had happened in the past stretch of months. Their faces were mere inches apart as they searched each other's eyes, and when Lucas's gaze dropped to her lips, she thought for one crazy moment that he might kiss her, a prospect that sent her heart pounding wildly against her chest.

She pulled in a shaky breath of expectation, but then the moment was shattered when the distant sound of Zay's voice groaning in protest drifted to them from downstairs, followed by a spurt of laughter from Maya and Auggie. Awareness returned as the feminine laugh turned into a playful taunt; awareness of where they were, what they were doing, and their situation with Maya.

Lucas sighed. He'd come really close to kissing her just then. But now he was just glad he hadn't. Because kissing her now would mean that he'd have to do the same with Maya, and he really didn't want to go there. That was how this whole confusing mess had started.

But something did feel as if it had changed. It was crazy, but he felt like he'd regained some sort of equilibrium within himself in that quiet moment that had just passed between them. He felt steadier somehow, and more able to manage. And for the first time in a long time, he felt more sure of his direction.

He looked at Riley in wonder, marveling over her ability to do that for him, without even saying a word. Somehow, he'd forgotten the effect she could have on him.

Riley noticed the change that came over his face. It seemed like he was looking at her with admiration and something that looked a little like awe. She couldn't imagine why. But before she could ask him, he spoke up.

"Thank you, Riley," he said huskily.

"For what?" she inquired, her lips curved quizzically.

"For just..." he shook his head minutely, searching for words, and then he smiled. "For reminding me that you're my North Star."

Riley tipped her head in confusion. She was glad to finally see a genuine smile on his face, but she didn't understand his reference.

Seeing that, Lucas went on to explain. "Farkle started teaching me about the stars on his ceiling over the summer, and it reminded me of something Pappy Joe told me when I was a kid. See, the North Star is special, because all the other stars in the northern sky move around during the night and change position, but the North Star stays put. It's a fixed point. That's why people all through history have used it to navigate by. When you look up at the sky, you can always find it because it shines brighter than the stars around it. Then once you've found it, you know which way is north, and you can plot your course from there. And it will always be there, showing you the way north, and guiding your way."

His smile grew softer, and he lowered their hands from his chest to clasp hers in his lap as he confessed, "That's what you are to me. It's what you've been from the first time I saw that light that seems to shine out of you...and you were brighter than all the other stars." His expression turned a little wry at the cheesiness of the statement, but his words made Riley's heart swell with feeling.

"And it seems like, the moment I found you on that subway, you steadied my course. You've shown me the way I want to go. _You're_ my North Star."

He didn't know how he'd managed to forget that. For some reason, it didn't seem like it had been working like that between them anymore. He didn't know if it was because her light hadn't been shining as brightly, or he'd just forgotten to look for it. He'd have to think about that some more later.

Riley was speechless. What he'd said was beautiful and amazing, and she couldn't believe he was saying it about _her_. He made it sound like she was profoundly special. Did he really think she stood out from everyone around her? Even Maya?

"Lucas, I don't know what to say," she admitted. "Thank you."

"Thank you?" he repeated somewhat humorously. That hadn't really been a response he'd expected.

"Well, no one's ever said anything so...incredible to me before," she said on a small huff of laughter, her eyes lowered a bit bashfully. "So, yeah, I feel like I should say thank you."

Lucas smiled fondly at her. "Well, I'd say you're welcome, but I was only telling the truth."

She absently began playing with his fingers. Her gaze was still turned downward, but she looked up at him through her lashes. "I didn't know you thought of me like that. You make me sound- really important to you."

"You **are** important to me, Riley. I've always told you that."

He had told her that, that was true. She just hadn't been sure it still applied.

Maya's voice drifted up the stairs again, this time lifted in triumph. Riley's mom said something in a dry tone, and Maya and the others laughed.

The sound of her best friend's laughter should've made her happy. But it only served as a reminder to Riley that she and Lucas weren't allowed to have a moment like this without him compensating for it on the other side of the triangle.

"You know you're going to have to say something like this to Maya now. Even things up again," she told him, masking the pang that thought sent through her heart with a determined thrust of her chin.

Lucas's expression flattened briefly. The evening up thing was really getting old. But in this case it didn't matter.

"I'm not gonna do that this time," he refused with a shake of his head. "This isn't something I can even up."

It lightened her heart to hear that, but she knew she should insist.

"Why not?" she asked instead.

Smiling, Lucas lifted their hands from his lap and linked their fingers together.

"Because there's only one North Star. You can't have two, or you'd never be sure of your direction. And when I see that light inside of you, brighter than all the rest, there's not any doubt in my mind. My North Star is you."


End file.
